The US’s most secretive intelligence agency was embarrassingly robbed and mocked by hackers

The New York Times on Sunday published a detailed look at how the National Security Agency, the US’s largest and most secretive intelligence agency, had been deeply infiltrated over the past year.

Expensive NSA cyberweapons are now for sale to hostile countries and have already been used in cyberattacks against the public.

Now doubt surrounds the NSA, and experts wonder whether the agency can do its job at all.

The National Security Agency, the US’s largest and most secretive intelligence agency, has been deeply infiltrated by anonymous hackers, as detailed in a New York Times exposé published Sunday.

The NSA, which compiles massive troves of data on US citizens and organizes cyberoffensives against the US’s enemies, was deeply compromised by a group known as the Shadow Brokers, which has made headlines in the past year in connection to the breach, whose source remains unclear.

The group now posts cryptic, mocking messages pointed toward the NSA as it sells the cyberweapons, created at huge cost to US taxpayers, to any and all buyers, including US adversaries like North Korea and Russia.

“It’s a disaster on multiple levels,” Jake Williams, a cybersecurity expert who formerly worked on the NSA’s hacking group, told The Times. “It’s embarrassing that the people responsible for this have not been brought to justice.”

“These leaks have been incredibly damaging to our intelligence and cybercapabilities,” Leon Panetta, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, told The Times. “The fundamental purpose of intelligence is to be able to effectively penetrate our adversaries in order to gather vital intelligence. By its very nature, that only works if secrecy is maintained and our codes are protected.”

Furthermore, a wave of cybercrime has been linked to the release of the NSA’s leaked cyberweapons.

Another NSA source who spoke with The Times described the attack as being at least in part the NSA’s fault. The NSA has long prioritized cyberoffense over securing its own systems, the source said. As a result the US now essentially has to start over on cyberinitiatives, Panetta said.